Hasbro Shares Its Content
Strategy Behind Launching
a Brand on YouTube
Author
Victor Lee
Published
June 2017
Topics
Video, Entertainment,
Content Marketing
Toy company Hasbro has a long history of creating
TV episodes to market its brands—among them My
Little Pony. This year, the team followed its audience
and created its first digital-only YouTube series
to launch a brand. Hasbro’s SVP of Global Digital
Marketing Victor Lee shares the scoop.
W
e took a big step this year at Hasbro. We broke out of our old
branding mold and brought our new lifestyle brand, Hanazuki, to
life digitally on our YouTube channel instead of on TV.
Why? It was time to get with the times. These days brands can’t tell
consumers, “To engage with our brand, you need to be in your living
room, watching TV, on Monday at 2:00 p.m.” Today people watch what
they want, whenever they want. There’s no relevant daypart anymore
when people tune in any part of the day. So as brands, we have to be
consistently present—and let people binge-watch and engage further if
they’d like.
Hanazuki - Season 1
Trailer
To launch our new Hanazuki brand, we created a video content series
called “Hanazuki: Full of Treasures” and published it with premium
placement on the YouTube Kids app. Then, we used TrueView campaigns
to connect with parents on the main YouTube app.
Launching a brand digitally without TV was new for us, but it was worth it
to be able to make our content always available and to create an ongoing,
open dialogue with our viewers.
There were three critical principles guiding our video content and
promotion strategy. Here’s how we made it work:
1. Being strategic about content-release timing and
volume
Because Hanazuki is a “Moonflower”—a childlike being who dwells on a
moon, protecting its creatures from a dark force called the “Big Bad”—we
chose to launch the show on the date of the first full moon of the year.
That added a touch of extra magic for our viewers. And when new content
for the series launches, we make sure it’s timed to a full moon too.
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We also chose to release episodes in batches so that viewers could
choose how they watched. Some might watch one 11-minute episode and
come back later, and others might want to binge-watch several episodes
right away.
“Years ago you’d think of making the same ad
for every channel—matching luggage. Now you
bring the best luggage for the trip you’re going
on.”
By publishing enough at one time to satiate the need for going deep with a
story—and providing more content at strategically chosen points over the
course of the year—we were able to find a content release model that both
keeps engagement high and gives viewers anytime access.
2. Tailoring promotion of the content to the channel
Our attention spans are limited, and there are endless distractions in
today’s media landscape, so we believe that you must build the story
based on the channel and the audience that’s there.
We’ve seen the best results when we tailor content to context. That’s why
with Hanazuki, we made sure our ads were made-for-YouTube just like the
series itself. This means we designed ad creative around our audience’s
specific viewing behaviors on YouTube and used bumper ads, TrueView
Discovery, and TrueView in-stream ads to match different viewer contexts.
Years ago, you’d think of making the same ad for every channel—
matching luggage. Now you bring the best luggage for the trip you’re
going on.
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3. Optimizing ads for engagement, not just reach
In the past, you would run a campaign for six months—set it and forget it—
and measure reach at the end. Now we have the capacity to learn in real
time. We also have the capacity to measure the metrics that really matter.
For our YouTube advertising strategy, we looked at engagement KPIs—
shares and comments, for example—as a proxy for attention. After testrunning our 30-second trailer for Hanazuki on YouTube, we quickly made
edits to reflect what our viewers showed interest in based on analytics.
We did things like add more music in certain places. We also optimized
by adding CTA overlays and incorporating subtle branding in the first five
seconds.
We knew things were going well when our audience would comment,
subscribe, and tell their friends about the series. And when we saw
fans creating their own content in response, that’s when we really knew
something was working.
How bucking tradition got us closer to our audience
Though it was challenging and frankly a little bit scary to launch on
YouTube instead of the “traditional” way for the first time, we took a
lot away from this campaign—and not just the dates of full moons in
2017. We learned the importance of adjusting to our audience’s viewing
behaviors, adapting the story to the channel we’re telling it in, and planning
beyond reach for attention and engagement.
But the overarching thread of these learnings is nothing new: the
importance of listening to your audience. Because the fact is, brands
are no longer telling consumers what brands are. Consumers are telling
brands what brands are. It’s our job to use their feedback to inform our
strategy and give them a great story to talk about.
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Victor Lee
SVP of Global Digital Marketing at Hasbro
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